AHA News NowAug 17, 2017

The Trump administration has indicated it will make this month's cost-sharing reduction payments to health insurers, according to news reports yesterday. Insurers use the federal payments to reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income individuals purchasing coverage through the Health Insurance... read more

AHA News NowAug 17, 2017

The Health Resources and Services Administration today proposed delaying until July 1, 2018 the effective date of its final rule on 340B drug ceiling prices and civil monetary penalties for manufacturers. The final rule has been subject to multiple delays since January, and most recently was scheduled to... read more

AHA News NowAug 17, 2017

Hospitals in the Inpatient Quality Reporting Program can review their calendar year 2017 data for three clinical episode-based payment measures through Sept. 16 at the QualityNet secure portal, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced yesterday. The reports, on the three condition EBP... read more

AHA News NowAug 17, 2017

The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday appointed 14 public members to a committee created by the 21st Century Cures Act to better coordinate federal efforts to address serious mental illness and emotional disturbance. They are: Linda Beeber, nursing professor at the University of North... read more

AHA News NowAug 16, 2017

Health care quality continued to improve overall through 2015, with notable gains in patient safety and person-centered care, according to the latest annual report on health care quality and disparities from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. About 80% of the person-centered measures,... read more

AHA News NowAug 16, 2017

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently agreed to allow the New Hampshire Health Protection Program to continue unchanged through 2018, but said the state will need to change how it finances the non-federal share of the program in the future. One of 31 expansion states, New Hampshire created... read more

AHA News NowAug 16, 2017

The adolescent death rate from drug overdoses increased to 3.7 per 100,000 in 2015 after gradually declining to 3.1 from a high of 4.2 per 100,000 in 2007, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose death rates for girls aged 15-19 nearly doubled between 1999 and... read more

AHA News NowAug 16, 2017

Limited evidence suggests that cannabis may alleviate neuropathic pain in some patients, but insufficient evidence exists for other types of chronic pain, according to a study reported yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study reviewed the benefits of plant-based cannabis preparations for... read more

AHA News NowAug 15, 2017

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today issued a proposed rule that would cancel the cardiac and surgical hip and femur fracture treatment mandatory bundling payment programs, known as the episode payment models. It also would cancel the cardiac rehabilitation incentive payment model. These... read more